Album Review: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's CSNY 74

Fleetwood Mac had nothing on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
when it came to internal discord. But like the Mac pack, CSNY managed to leave much
of its friction at the stage door. And to the extent that it couldn’t, it often
used its competitive squabbles to fuel first-rate music.

This fascinating and well-recorded new document of the
group’s final tour leaves no doubt of its potential for greatness—or of the
fact that it was destined to dissolve. There was little collaborative writing by
the quartet and little sharing of the stage at these stadium shows. What we get
is a David Crosby song, with backup by his three bandmates; then a Stephen
Stills song with support from the other three; and so on. Neil Young’s numbers
in particular seem more like the work of a soloist with backup than of a group of
musicians content to stand together in the spotlight.

That’s not to say that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young lacked
rapport; on the contrary, their harmonies and guitar exchanges here are almost uniformly
excellent. After hearing this 40-track, three-CD album, though, you won’t have
any trouble understanding why the group broke up.

There are anachronistic elements to the package, which was
recorded just after Nixon resigned the presidency and as the Vietnam War was
winding down. David Crosby talks about the 18-minute gap on the Watergate tapes
and the program incorporates such topical songs as “Goodbye Dick,” “Chicago”
and “Ohio.” Meanwhile, Stills’s “Johnny’s Garden” proclaims, “I’ll do anything
I got to do, cut my hair ” while Crosby sings about letting his “freak flag
fly” in “Almost Cut My Hair.” On an accompanying DVD of eight previously
unreleased performances from Landover, Maryland and London’s Wembley Arena, all
four group members can be seen sporting enormous sideburns.

But while some of the lyrics and visuals here will transport
you to another era, nearly all the music—culled not from a single show but from
the best moments of multiple recorded gigs—still seems vital today. Organized
like the concerts in the series, with a shimmering acoustic set sandwiched
between rock outings, the album includes many of CSNY’s best-known tunes plus previously
unavailable rarities like “Love Art Blues,” “Don’t Be Denied” and the
aforementioned “Goodbye Dick.” Among the many high points: a sweet acoustic
reading of Young’s affecting “Long May You Run,” a spirited, guitar-driven
“Wooden Ships” and a bluesy “On the Beach.” “Guinevere,” “Suite: Judy Blue
Eyes” and a cover of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird” all show off the group’s exquisite
harmonies.

There are a few missteps. “Love the One You’re With,” for
example, features a throwaway Stills vocal, and his “Black Queen” sounds like
the kind of thing the punk/new-wave movement arrived to counteract. But with
more than three hours of music here, it’s not difficult to forgive the
occasional lapse.

This collection, which includes a 188-page booklet of notes
and period photos, is of course not the only document of CSNY’s concert work. There’s
the chart-topping 4-Way Street, from
1971, which is worth hearing but arguably not quite on a par musically with the
new recording. (It’s not as wide-ranging, either, and includes versions of fewer than a quarter of the tracks on CSNY 74.)
There’s also the group’s charming but often tentative-sounding four-song
Woodstock performance, during which Stephen Stills famously commented, “This is
the second time we’ve ever played in front of people, man. We’re scared
shitless.” Five years later, when the group recorded CSNY 74, they seemed not scared at all onstage—on the contrary,
they sounded self-assured—but their story was almost over. Don’t miss this memorable
last chapter.

Note: You can buy CSNY
74 in several formats other than the three-CD-plus-DVD box described above.
If you cut your hair years ago and have since become a hedge fund manager, you
might want to spring for the numbered, limited-edition “deluxe box set,” which
includes 180-gram vinyl LPs in a laser-etched case, a Blu-ray audio disc, a DVD
and a coffee-table-size book, all delivered in a custom-made wooden box.
According to the CSNY official website, the exclusive purveyor of this edition,
it will set you back $499, plus a hefty shipping charge. Wow. I still remember the
days when record album prices like that had a decimal point after the four.

Jeff Burger (byjeffburger.com), a longtime magazine editor, has written about music, politics, and popular culture for more than 75 periodicals. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches…